


Do I Know You?

by SingingInTheRaiin



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Abigail is playing matchmaker, Dark Will Graham, Gen, Hannibal is a Cannibal, Hannibal is the type to text with proper sentences and everything, M/M, Will adopted Abigail, Will is not, and only has one dog because a child was enough to fill most of his time, and she's not too bad at it, the canon timeline has been all shifted around in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-26 23:38:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18186998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingInTheRaiin/pseuds/SingingInTheRaiin
Summary: What are the odds of two serial killers getting into contact via a wrong number mix up?





	Do I Know You?

The text message simply said ‘Very clever’, and Will furrowed his eyebrows at the unfamiliar number that was attached to it. He didn’t really have anybody to text on a daily basis, and he certainly hadn’t been going around giving out his phone number to strangers so that they would be able to send him vague texts. 

After a few moments of deliberation, considering the pros and cons of simply deleting the text, Will decided that he may as well respond, and perhaps have a bit of fun from what was most likely a simple case of a mis-typed number. ‘thanks’.

It didn’t take long before the mysterious other person responded. ‘I’m surprised that you aren’t acting more defensive. You usually hate it when I compliment you.’

Well whoever was texting him was certainly a stickler for proper grammar and punctuation and full length sentences. Which meant that it was most likely someone on the older side who probably constantly went on and on about how much he hated all of the modern texting slang. Will could definitely see how to make this fun, and decided on the spot what kind of a “character” he would play in this insane charade. ‘i only hate it when you sound patronizing’.

While he waited for the other person to respond, Will turned back to the papers he had been in the middle of grading. He knew well enough by now that his students were likely to start rioting if he didn’t hand back their papers within a week or two of having them turned in. He supposed that he couldn’t really blame them for that, but it still made him want to-

His phone buzzed again. ‘Patronizing is a rather large word for you… I am only joking, of course. I am sorry if you feel that I talk down to you sometimes. You must know that it is a result of my chosen career path, not anything towards you in specific.’

‘oh i know. but it still makes you a bit of a dick’.

The response to that one was almost immediate. ‘Excuse me?’ And then the phone began to ring. 

Will stared at the device with wide eyes, and then he laughed to himself before answering. “I’m sorry, I know you had the wrong number, I was just messing around.”

The voice on the other end sounded prim and stiff. “I see. Quite rude of you, was it not?”

Will shrugged. “Hey, at least I answered your call to confess, even though for all I know you could be some kind of deranged serial killer.”

“Yes, imagine that,” the other man said dryly.

Will just snorted. He felt safe enough, since he figured that the odds of two different serial killers speaking to each other due to a wrong number mix up had to be pretty damn low. “I am sorry to have bothered you. But in my defense, you really should have double checked the number you typed in before sending the first message.”

The other man let out a soft sigh. “Yes, I suppose that that was my mistake. Though I am certain that I used the exact number Abigail gave me,” he muttered mostly to himself.

Will choked back on some air. “Wait- Abigail? You wouldn’t by any chance mean Abigail Hobbs, would you?”

That seemed to work to suddenly intrigue the stranger. “How do you know her?”

“She’s my daughter.”

There was a long pause there before the man responded. “Then I suppose that this was just her idea of a prank then, Mr. Hobbs?”

“Graham,” he corrected. “I’m Will Graham. And who are you?” He hadn’t cared at all about the man’s identity before, but now that he knew it was someone in close contact with his daughter, it seemed very relevant.

“Dr. Hannibal Lecter. I am mentoring Abigail in her pursuit of her social work degree, and we are working together on gathering data for her thesis paper. She was the one who had suggested we exchange phone numbers so as to stay in touch easier, though now I am at a loss as to why she would give me your number instead.”

It was true that Abigail could be a bit manipulative at times, though Will had a sinking feeling that this was something she’d done because she’d believed it would come across as a simple favor. “Tell me, Dr. Lecter, are you an attractive man?”

There was a short pause, and then, “That is certainly not the next question I was expecting to hear from you, Mr. Graham.”

Will laughed. “I think that she was trying to pull off some kind of set up or something. She’s been quite worried the past couple of years, thinking that I’ll be all miserable and alone with her off at school. If she’s working with you on her paper, she must have gotten to know you well enough to believe that we would be a good match for each other, and then arranged for this whole little meet cute situation. Sorry about the trouble. Try asking Abigail for her real number next time you see her.”

He was about to hang up, but Hannibal suddenly spoke again. “Abigail has spoken of you before, though not by name. There is something about you that has me curious. She mentioned that you have a gift of pure empathy, that you can understand anyone. Is that true?”

Will hummed thoughtfully under his breath. He’d never expected Abigail to meet someone who she actually trusted enough to confide in like this. While on the one hand, he should be bothered by her getting close to an older male mentor figure, he didn’t think that it was meant to be in a creepy way, considering the fact that she seemed to intend on having Will and Hannibal get to know each other better. 

After thinking about it for another few seconds, he shrugged and decided to be honest. “Yes, it’s true. I’ve been like this for as long as I can remember. Certainly was helpful throughout the moody teenager phase.” It’s not like his empathy was some kind of big secret anyways. Even Jack Crawford, head of the BSU, had come to him to beg for his help on a case at one point. Of course, Will had immediately shot him down, knowing that if he let himself get into the heads of other killers, he risked his own style being smeared around and potentially being brought to light. Well, at least when he officially got into the heads of killers. When he did it on his own time, he used it to hide his own murders, making sure to follow the cases carefully so that he only killed in a certain way until the other killer was caught or dropped off the map. 

“As someone who studies the mind for a living, I would be quite fascinated to get some further insight into such a unique gift.”

“I’ll have to get back to you about that. Busy schedule and all. Anyways, it was nice to meet you, Dr. Lecter, even if it is because my daughter is a conniving little brat.” He hung up abruptly without waiting for Hannibal to say anything else, and then immediately called up Abigail. “I just had the most interesting conversation with a certain Dr. Lecter.”

“Oh?” Her voice sounded innocent, but Will knew her too well to fall for such a thing. “And just how many times have I told you that I don’t need you interfering in my love life?”

Abigail sighed. “Dad… you know that I’m just worried about you. I mean, come on. You live out in the middle of nowhere all by yourself. And before you try and argue, no, Winston doesn’t count as you not being by yourself, no matter how much you love the mutt.”

He laughed. “Are you still jealous that I adopted a dog?”

“I suppose I should have expected that you just had a thing for adopting strays. Anyways, Dad, I just want you to be happy. You know that, right? I promise I’ll leave you alone after this, but I really think you should at least try and meet Hannibal. He’s got more in common with you than you would probably expect from the look of him. And he is handsome, if you’re into the whole, ‘distinguished older gentleman with money and class’ type of thing. Please just give him a chance? For me?”

Will laughed again. “And just how is me going on a date something that I would be doing for you?”

She was only silent for a moment before coming up with an answer. “Because I deserve the peace of mind of knowing that my dad isn’t going to die old and alone surrounded by nothing but fishing gear and a mangy mutt? Because I deserve to have a two parent household-”

Will snorted, not meaning to interrupt her, but unable to not. “I’ve never even met the man in person, and only spoke to him for a couple of minutes, and we’re already married and living together?”

“Please Dad?” 

Unfortunately, Will could easily picture that look on her face, with the wide eyes and slightly trembling lip. And if he still didn’t agree right away to whatever it was she had asked for, she would reach up to rub at the scar on her neck in a not so subtle reminder of what had brought them together as a family.

Will heaved out a large sigh, and reached up to brush his hair away from his forehead. “Fine. One meeting, if your Dr. Lecter also agrees to it. And make sure he knows that if he tries to psychoanalyze me, I’ll be out of there faster than he can even blink.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Will thought that his daughter sounded far too excited for someone who’d managed to get their father a date, but decided that he wasn’t going to ruin her moment, at least for today.

Besides, odds were that he’d show up to meet Lecter, find out that they had absolutely nothing in common, awkwardly make small talk through a crappy cup of coffee, and then be on his way back to his normal life without a care in the world. It seemed like the perfect plan to him. “Yeah yeah, I’m the best, I know. Now get back to whatever it is you were working on before I called. University is too expensive to be slacking off.”

He loved the sound of Abigail’s laugh as she said her goodbyes and then hung up. After he’d first taken her in when she was nine years old, she had moped around silently, refusing to find joy in anything. Not that Will could really blame her, considering the fact that her own father had tried to kill her, and then she’d watched as Will killed her father while she bled out on the floor. 

He’d taken her father away from her, and it had made Will feel responsible for her, and he’d decided to adopt her himself. He knew that a lot of foster parents out there would be wary to take in a child with such a troubled past, but Will was prepared to handle it, and Abigail hadn’t argued against it. 

He’d realized right away that he needed to give her space, so he spent time with her in complete silence, watching television or teaching her how to fish or chattering on for her. It had taken almost an entire year, but then one day Will had ended up in the hospital after being stabbed in the shoulder, and she had rushed into his room in a panic. She’d displayed great resourcefulness in making it to the hospital, and Will had pulled her into a tight (one-armed) hug. She’d berated him then, and told him that she’d already lost one dad, and that he wasn’t allowed to be responsible for making her lose another.

Will had been more touched by the lecture than he’d have ever expected, and he had resigned from his job with the police. He got a job teaching at Quantico, where he would still be able to stay up to date with the latest interesting killers without getting too involved in the actual stopping them part of all of it. 

When Abigail had been about fourteen years old, she’d approached him to ask if he had ever killed anyone besides her birth father. Will never wanted to lie to her, so he told her the truth, and told her that it was okay if she was scared and wanted to leave him. But she’d just pulled him into a hug and promised that she wasn’t scared. She even told him that she would help him, if he wanted.

The idea of bringing Abigail into his darkness seemed absolutely horrific. She’d been touched by darkness before, but he didn’t want to marinate her in it. He’d gently turned down her offer, and she’d pouted about it, and then told him that she’d always enjoyed hunting with her first father.

That was the point when he’d realized how much he had been fooling himself into thinking that she was entirely innocent. He’d just wanted to believe it so badly that it had blinded him to the truth. Then he carefully explained to her that he was different than Garrett Hobbs. He only killed ‘bad people’, and he would never do anything to hurt her because he loved her very much. Then he’d told her to wait, and that if she really wanted to help, then she could once she was an adult who was responsible for making her own choices. 

Will was drawn out of his thoughts of the past by the sound of Winston’s barking, and he went to find the dog and give him some love and attention. It was a while after that that his phone rang again, and even though he hadn’t saved the number, he recognized it as Hannibal’s, and waited for it to ring a couple of times before he answered it. “Hello?”

“Hello, Mr. Graham, this is Dr. Lecter again. I’m calling because Abigail has gotten in touch with me, and seemed quite insistent about the fact that I would apparently be doing myself a great disservice to not try and meet with you at least once.”

Will rolled his eyes at the thought of Abigail meddling even now. She was apparently just incapable of minding her own business. Not that Will could begrudge her for wanting him to be happy. “Yes, she said about as much to me as well, though obviously about you. I’m assuming that the sooner we get together for coffee, the sooner we’ll be able to get her to back down.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Hannibal agreed. “Though I have been informed that you live in Wolf Trap, and I’m not certain where the halfway point would be to make sure that neither of us are inconveniencing the other.”

Will shrugged. “I can make the drive up to Baltimore. It would give me a chance to drop in on Abigail, since I haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks, and I know how to cut the trip down to just over an hour with the right back roads and shortcuts. When be a good time for you?”

Hannibal seemed to be almost humming while he thought about it, and then he listed out a few dates and times that would work for him. It certainly didn’t escape Will’s attention that all of the dates suggested were for that very week. He wasn’t sure why Hannibal was so darn eager to hang out with him of all people, but it was bordering on unnerving, and he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do about that.

“Friday works for me. Then I don’t have to rush back home for anything.”

Once they’d settled on a date and an actual place to meet- Hannibal had first suggested his own home, claiming to be able to make a great cup of coffee, but Will had quickly vetoed the idea. Regardless of what kind of activities he liked to do in his own time, he was not stupid enough to go to a complete stranger’s house by himself. Then Hannibal suggested a high end coffee shop that would surely be too far out of the range of what Will felt comfortable paying for a simple cup of coffee. In the end, they compromised with a mid-level coffee shop, not one of the chains, but not one of those hipster places that charged out the ass. 

Then Will hung up, since he couldn’t think of anything else in particular that he would need to discuss with Hannibal, and he did have other things to do. Like play with Winston some more while he tried to avoid his responsibilities. The worst part about being a teacher in a place like Quantico was just how intense the students got when they wanted to excel in their classes. But sometimes Will just wasn’t in the mood to cater to all those kids. Sometimes, he would be standing in front of his classes, looking out at all the students, wondering if one of them would someday be the one to catch him.

,,,

Friday seemed to come by far too quickly, and it seemed like a rare occasion where Will wasn’t particularly looking forward to having a weekend. Of course he couldn’t wait to see Abigail, but he felt a bit apprehensive about seeing Hannibal. It would be easy enough to call off the date, but he felt like that would come across as too rude, and he didn’t want to make things too awkward for Abigail, who would still have to work with the guy.

He packed Winston into the car and then headed out towards Baltimore. He stayed in the same hotel whenever he was there, and already knew that they allowed pets as long as they were house trained and non-aggressive. Along the drive, he impulsively decided to fish out his phone and call the place where he and Hannibal had agreed to meet. He asked them whether they would allow a friendly dog inside, and the woman who answered the phone was quick to tell him that they would be more than happy to allow it.

Will grinned at the thought of what Hannibal’s surprised face would look like when he saw that Will had brought his dog along. And then that led to Will wondering more generally what Hannibal looked like. He’d had an interesting accent that Will hadn’t quite been able to place, and he wondered what he was getting himself into. Abigail had called Hannibal attractive, but Will had noticed over the years that she didn’t always have the best taste in men, and not just in the looks department.

But it would be over soon enough. Will parked outside of the coffee shop that they had agreed on, and clipped a leash on Winston before leading him inside. The waitresses all immediately began cooing over the dog, who lapped up the attention like nobody’s business. He seemed perfectly content to let the world believe that he never got any love or attention anywhere else.

Will didn’t really mind, though. He loved Winston, and if everyone wanted to show their love for him too, then he wasn’t going to stop him. Winston had been a too-skinny, too-shy little thing in the beginning, and Will had been glad to see him eventually grow into his own personality, which involved being very friendly with people, especially if they smelled like food.

Will had been mindlessly scrolling on his phone with one hand while patting Winston’s head with the other when he heard the sound of someone clearing their throat. “Mr. Graham?”

Will slowly looked up, and then gulped as his eyes took in the regal looking man standing above him. “Dr. Lecter?”

The man nodded, and slid into the seat across from Will. “I must admit, I had believed that Abigail’s descriptions of you were full of bias to increase the chances of me agreeing to the date. But now I can see that her words were not even close to being able to capture your full beauty.”

Will shifted awkwardly in his seat. “Thanks? You look nice too.”

As Will reached up to adjust his glasses, Hannibal leaned back in his seat, a curious gleam in his eyes. “You seem adverse to eye contact.”

“You picked up on something like that in such a short amount of time? Or did Abigail just happen to mention that too, since she seems to have let slip so many other things about me?” Truthfully, Will tended to avoid eyes because that was the easiest way to avoid falling into someone else’s mindset. While it could be useful at times to see how other killers tended to think, it was just irritating to find himself imitating complete strangers on a daily basis just because they’d exchanged awkwardly polite hellos. 

Hannibal smiled. “It is my job to notice things about people, especially the kinds of things that they don’t want anyone else to know. I cannot turn it off, anymore than I’m sure you can.”

Will snorted. “Great. You don’t think that this is going to be awkward at all between us, all things considered?”

And Hannibal honestly didn’t look all that bothered by anything. He just gave a slight shrug, the smile not dropping from his face. “All first meetings must start off with some awkwardness. It makes it all the more interesting when we find a common ground. So why don’t you tell me something about yourself, Mr. Graham? I can only assume that you are a dog lover, but there must be more to you than that. What are your hobbies, or your job?”

For just a split second, Will froze. Of course meeting someone knew meant reaching out with his empathy to try and get a feel for them, even if it wasn’t an intentional action. Abigail had said that Hannibal might have more in common with him than he might think. Hannibal was an older man, wealthy, had medical knowledge, seemed like the type to like art. 

Then Will relaxed in his seat, and offered a bigger smile to Hannibal. Maybe he’d been wrong about the odds earlier. He hadn’t been accounting for Abigail’s meddling in his life. However this was going to end, Will couldn’t deny that he was finding it all quite interesting. “Please, just call me Will.”


End file.
